Ubisoft

The perceived next big project from Ubisoft will ultimately not be such a thing based on word handed down from the company. Osiris, the project which was spun off from a cancelled Prince of Persia reboot, seemed like it would be the next core franchise for Ubisoft but the company has now revealed the project has been cancelled/given the Beyond Good & Evil 2 treatment i.e. indefinitely shelved.

Today some good and bad news has surfaced concerning the fate of the Prince of Persia franchise. Last seen in the rather disappointing quasi movie tie-in that was Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, Ubisoft has revealed that the time altering acrobatic Prince we know and love is being put into early retirement.

At long last the era of THQ has come to a close. After being foretold in a sense nearly a year ago via Kevin Dent and made more apparent by the public financial issues that the company was running into, THQ is now a thing of the past. The somewhat unfortunate demise of THQ isn’t a complete tearjerker moment however as several properties and studios made famous by the company will thankfully live on with new homes.

Assassins Creed 3 ends up feeling rushed and forced in a lot of areas. While the naval combat system is by far the shining star of this title, it feels like a lackluster ending to what I’ve felt is one of the most promising and interesting franchises in gaming.

The Pros:

+Naval combat is so good it could be a stand alone game.

+Impressive graphics and cinematics make for solid presentation.

+A concise (theoretical) ending to the franchise.

+Beautiful and fun hand to hand combat.

The Cons:

-Story is not friendly to casual franchise fans.

-Terrible loading design.

-Lackluster and shallow missions.

-User interface is needlessly cumbersome.

-New features meant to expand on past games are just tedious and meaningless.

ShogunGamer.com Rating :

6

I’ve had a rather love/hate relationship with the Assassins Creed franchise. For me, it seems to be a never-ending cycle where Ubisoft announces a game that sounds amazing on paper (and looks incredible in trailers!), but when I sit down to play it, a huge amount of small-issues add up to ruin the experience of what should have been an incredible game. Assassins Creed 3 (AC3) managed to once again follow this trend. I guess they get points for consistency.

We often don’t receive a double whammy of news concerning a particular project in one day, but word has surfaced regarding the live-action Splinter Cell movie. After learning that Ubisoft signed on writer Eric Singer (The International) to pen the Splinter Cell movie, none other than actor Tom Hardy has signed on to don the night vision goggles of Sam Fisher.

Ubisoft is truly serious about expanding their game properties into the realm of films as evident by the rather major, and somewhat shocking, developments surrounding the live-action adaptation of Assassin’s Creed. Not happy with doing just one film, Ubisoft has also pursued adapting a Splinter Cell movie. Perhaps a bit predictable in the realm of films due to other spy centric offerings (the Bourne series, 24), Ubi is serious about bringing Sam Fisher to the big screen and now they’v

Ubisoft is making its own fate and in the process could buck the trend of what has come before it. After announcing their plans to create a new label to focus on developing their properties into films and television shows, Ubisoft dropped the bomb on us that none other than Michael Fassbender would be starring and co-producer the film adaptation of Assassin’s Creed. This was of course after news surfaced which has Ubisoft in a near unprecedented deal which gave them sole creative control on the endeavor.

Another trailer for Action Man: The Video Game… oops I mean Splinter Cell: Blacklist has been released that is more story focused than the wham bam thank you ma’am action tone of what we’ve seen previously. The latest iteration of the Splinter Cell series is still settling in amongst fans of the series who don’t know if they should totally accept this continued emphasis on action or merely walk away from the series for good.

As a sign of the industry once again shifting in an unexpected way, Ubisoft has announced that their upcoming action brawler Spartacus Legends will be a free-to-play title. The forthcoming tie-in game for the hit Starz series Spartacus was announced back in July and now it’ll be completely free-to-play on both the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade. So thanks to Ubisoft literally anyone can become a gladiator and feel the rush that’s to be had from decapitating an enemy.

This may not be a complete surprise since the previous teases indicated as such, but Ubisoft and Techland have announced yet another installment in the Call of Juarez series. After receiving teases of an Ubi/Techland announcement earlier this week gamers and those in the “esteemed” games press put two and two together to deduct that another Call of Juarez was on the cards and today we have our first look at the title.